OPW - Apr 5 - These Woo Academy date coaching videos are so funny. Great advice on Indian dating encapsulated in an amusing and unique video. Woo is India's top matchmaking app, and #2 dating app overall next to Tinder. It competes with the likes of Truly Madly, Shaadi and Matrimony.

WEBWIRE - Apr 4 - Sumesh Menon, co-founder and CEO of Indian dating app Woo, will speak on mobile dating in India during the next mobile dating conference (iDate). The conference is taking place at the Sportsmen's Lodge Events Center in Studio City, CA on June 1-2, 2017.

THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE - Mar 24 - In 2007, the online matchmaking industry was centered around matrimonial sites like Shaadi.com. Ten years down the line, the landscape looks completely different. Online dating is now a growth industry. ~67% of Indian singles know couples dating online, and 33% of the couples surveyed had met online, according to digital research consultancy Mindshift Metrics. The online dating space has been growing at an explosive pace in urban India, driven by Tinder. Alongside international competitor OkCupid, local apps like TrulyMadly and Woo are snapping at Tinder's heels. Newer apps like SirfCoffee and Find Life Over Here (FLOH) are trying to create a middle ground between casual dating and traditional matrimonial sites. Both FLOH and SirfCoffee take the exclusive route — users can't just join, they have to go through a screening that includes detailed application forms and face-to-face interviews, either in person or through video-conferencing.

QZ - Mar 14 - Matrimonial websites in India aren't what they used to be. Earlier this month, Shaadi.com, one of India's largest matrimonial sites, launched an online campaign titled "Ladies First," which encourages women to make the first move. "Our audience is changing every day," said Gourav Rakshit, CEO at Shaadi.com. Similarly, a Jeevansaathi.com campaign last year focused on encouraging women to get online to find a match. India's sizeable youth population and growing smartphone penetration have meant that casual dating apps, too, are doing brisk business. India is Tinder's fastest-growing market in Asia, even as home-grown apps like TrulyMadly and Woo make merry. Yet, there are some things that haven't changed. It is still a conservative society where arranged marriages are still the norm.

INDIAN EXPRESS - Feb 14 - Speed dating is a concept where men and women meet for 5-8 mins, just enough to decide if they'd like to meet again. Speed dating saw it origins in 1998 when Rabbi Yaacov Deyo of Aish HaTorah first organised an event in the US as a way for Jewish singles to meet and marry. India has been flirting with the idea over the past decade. "Traditionally, India hasn't been a very open society when it comes to love. People often find it difficult to express feelings of love", says Taru Kapoor, country head of Tinder India. "Dating apps accelerate the process of finding someone in their own private space, instead of being guided by the family," explains Sumesh Menon, CEO and co-founder Woo. This is what makes the time ripe for speed dating to pick up pace here. DateTix is working towards setting up a formal speed dating culture in India. They began in January with Delhi, and intend to expand to other cities soon. Woo's Menon also believes there is a possibility that the concept will soon spread to Tier-II cities.

VC CIRCLE - Feb 1 - The price wasn't disclosed. Woo acquired the Dus platform and brand to increase its foothold in the US. Dus had around 150k members and was specifically aimed at South Asian singles living in the US. Its leadership team will join Woo and help with developing a country growth strategy and customising user features designed for the international Indian community.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES - Nov 4 - In all, TrulyMadly, Woo and Tinder have ~1M monthly active users in India, according to a report in tech journal iGadgetsworld. While data for matrimonial sites were not available, experts foresee dating apps catching up. Ritesh Banglani, who led an investment in TrulyMadly last year, said 25-35% of the "users on dating apps are looking for marriage". The trend of arranged marriages is likely to continue to decline and the logical next step for matrimonial sites would be to stay relevant either by innovating or acquire a leading dating app in India." Matrimony.com, which operates BharatMatrimony, acquired Matchify in April last year but CEO Murugavel Janakiraman insists that dating apps aren't able to scale up or make money here. "We tried out Matchify but India has a largely traditional user base so these apps are not going to work here," he said. Gourav Rakshit, CEO of Shaadi.com, conceded that although the site gets ~11K new registrations every day, many of its users are on dating apps as well.

THE NATIONAL - Oct 29 - In India arranged marriages continue to be the norm. A 2013 survey revealed that 75% of young Indians prefer arranged marriages. ~22M Indians use matrimonial sites such as BharatMatrimony, Shaadi.com and Jeevansathi. "India has 100M people over the age of 21 who are looking for partners. For them, matrimonial sites, with parents interfering, are not cool," says Hitesh Dhingra, co-founder of dating app TrulyMadly. TrulyMadly launched in India in 2014. It verifies personal details of its users because fake profiles are a big problem in India. ~3M Indians have downloaded dating app Woo. Woo demonstrates the rise of home-grown dating apps in India. While Tinder is well known, the indigenous online offerings are tailored to Indian cultural needs. Other apps include Aisle, which describes itself as a cross between a dating and a matrimonial app. Another offering is Floh (Find Life Over Here), which operates in 15 cities and five countries.

BUSINESS INSIDER - Oct 26 - Today, online dating is all about swiping left or right on smartphones. Unlike the West, where one night stands is not seen as a social taboo, in India, people browsing dating apps, often look for a long time commitment. "We aren't like Western dating apps, which are primarily for 'hook-ups'. Nor are we traditional desi matrimonial sites. We've tried to remove the taboo from the term 'dating' in the Indian world by associating it with safety and compatibility", said Sachin Bhatia, CEO and Co-Founder of TrulyMadly, a dating app. Another dating app, Woo, has started for people looking for a relationship. Woo has a Trust Score for every user, based on the amount of information a user volunteers to share with the app. This impacts the matches she/he receives. There is also a manual verification system in place to double check profiles.

THE WEEK - Aug 28 - Online platforms are changing the way Indians are finding love today. In the past marriages were arranged mostly through close friends and family members. There was no concept of dating. But today, with the all the dating apps, finding the right life partner often means a heavy investment of time and effort. But on the other side, there are those like web developer Rohan Mehta, 23, "an introverted tech geek" who found that Tinder helped him come out of his shell. "I joined Tinder to become more social and ended up making a few good friends. I even met a girl and we dated for a while." Tinder became available in India in 2013 and launched its operations here this year. Taru Kapoor, the app's India head, says the country is Tinder's fastest-growing market and has an energetic and diverse user base. There are also some home-grown apps like TrulyMadly, Woo and Aisle. All three came into existence with the founding members looking for a solution to their own dating woes. Launched in India in 2014, Woo has got ~3M downloads and is expanding to countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Unlike Tinder, Woo is designed to disallow married people from signing up. The founders estimate that the market of singles aged 24 and above is ~20M currently and will grow to 50M in the next three years. Aisle, the 2 years old app calls itself the 'middle path between traditional matrimony sites and casual dating apps'.

BW DISRUPT - Aug 10 - Woo has ~3M downloads and is currently a leading dating-matchmaking app in India. Woo was founded by U2opia Mobile in 2010 and was launched in July, 2014 by Sumesh Menon and Ankit Nautiyal. TagSearch, one of the key features of the app, allows users to view profiles based on attributes such as the city they live in or the profession they're in. Woo targets single, urban professionals in the age group 25-35, seeking a life partner. The app has received Series A funding from Matrix Partners and Omidyar Network.

TIMES OF INDIA - Jun 12 - "Dating is uncommon in India. Educated women are still conservative and politely decline when asked out. They don't even shake hands much, let alone display other gestures of affection." This is the gist of the 9th edition of the travellers' guide and scholars' manual released by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) recently. The handbook is one of the foremost travellers' guides for foreign tourists in India. But thanks to the rapidly growing popularity of dating apps - both in the metros and smaller towns - there are figures to prove just how 'out there' Indian women are in the dating game. Apps say that the growth of their user base shows that dating isn't just common, people are open to adopting new platforms for it. Sumesh Menon, CEO & co-founder of Woo, says, "In the last few years, India has adopted lifestyles very similar to those in global mega cities. We have seen a meteoric rise in the number of female users." Woo says it has a user base of 25 lakh in India, with 30% of those being women. They have seen a 50% growth in users in NCR in the last three months alone.

BESTMEDIA INFO - May 19 - After TrulyMadly and Woo launching in 2014, Tinder came up with a storm in January 2016 and destabilised the market to some extent. Tinder saw 97% growth in active user base in the last few months and 400% increase in app downloads since its launch in India. TrulyMadly gets new users every day and they spend ~45 minutes daily on the app. Woo too has ~2.5 M users. Sachin Bhatia, CEO of TrulyMadly, said, "We are looking at a major disruption in matrimonial websites." Co-founder and CEO, Woo, believes in co-existence. "Dating apps are going to co-exist for the next 15-20 years. Eventually, the younger audience will stop using these websites. I don't think the country is in a situation that anything is going to get replaced soon." But Aditya Save, CMO of Shaadi.com, said, "I don't see dating apps as a competition."

EXCHANGE FOR MEDIA - Apr 26 - Taru Kapoor is focusing on establishing Tinder in India. The 97% growth of its active user base in India over three months and 400% increase of app downloads over the last year explains Tinder's strategy to open its first international office in Delhi. Close behind is TrulyMadly; launched in 2014 whose market share is 2.5%. Another homegrown app built in 2014, Woo has 2.5M users. QuackQuack has 1.3M users. Ravi Mittal, founder, QuackQuack says, "Our focus has been more on the casual side of dating." TrulyMadly only considers Tinder as its main competition. Woo's marketing strategy focuses on social media. For QuackQuack, simple banner ads have been effective for driving good ROI till date. TrulyMadly, Woo and Tinder have also invested in events.

TIMES OF INDIA - Apr 24 - Indian dating app TrulyMadly records an almost equal ratio of registrations from big and small cities. Launched in the second half of 2014, the platform has recorded a massive growth and sees ~55% users from metros such as Delhi and Mumbai and 45% users from smaller cities. While dating apps were launched first in metros, with an intention to tap the large migrant population, those like Woo have, in fact, registered requests from smaller cities to start their operations there. "When we started, registrations were pretty fast and almost 50% were coming from non-metro cities or smaller towns. There were demands and letters from places such as Darjeeling, Ahmedabad and Lucknow to begin operations in their cities," says Sumesh Menon, cofounder and CEO of Woo. The 'matchmaking' app began operations in July, 2014, and has a user base of ~2.5M as of now. Tinder's numbers are also a testimony to the trend. India head Taru Kapoor shares the numbers, saying, "India is Tinder's largest market in Asia and continues to grow rapidly and organically. The app attracts ~14M swipes each day in India an increase from 7.5M in September 2015. We have users across India, in big cities as well as smaller cities and towns."

STRAITSTIMES - Feb 28 - Tinder started gaining traction in 2013, opening an office in India last month, while Indian dating apps like TrulyMadly, Woo, and Floh.in - which all promise a more lasting relationship - have since gained attention in a country where over half of the 1.25B population is under 35. The apps are popular with those between the ages of 18 and 34. TrulyMadly has 500k active users. Tinder has seen more than a 400% increase in downloads over the last year. Over the last six months alone, it has gone from 7.5M to 14M swipes every day. Another app, Woo, grew from 10k users in its first month in the southern city of Bangalore to 2M subscribers across the cities when it launched in 2014. It promises "connections not swipes", targeting those aged 25 and above.